


let us rebel for freedom

by Tobi_Black



Series: Let Us 'verse [8]
Category: Star Wars Prequel Trilogy, Star Wars: Clone Wars (2003) - All Media Types, Star Wars: Rebels, Star Wars: Rise of Empire Era - All Media Types, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Clone Rebellion, Alternate Universe - Rebellion on Ryloth, Freedom Fighter Hera, Gen, Post-Order 66, Rebel Aayla, Strong Female Characters, troopers and 'troopers are two different things
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-30
Updated: 2018-07-30
Packaged: 2019-06-18 11:37:29
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 1,522
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15484914
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tobi_Black/pseuds/Tobi_Black
Summary: Hera had lived through the Clone Wars, fought alongside troopers. She had lived through the fall of the Republic, fighting against 'troopers when Ryloth rebelled against the Empire.She never expected to find a Jedi after the Empire declared them Public Enemy Number One.





	1. Chapter 1

**22 BBY**

Hera remembered when troopers came to Ryloth during the Wars.

She’d been young, but not that young. Her planet was being attacked, and she wasn’t going to lie down and take it, she was too much her father’s daughter to _not_ fight. She’d gone out into the city and fought, twirling and spinning on her thin heels to dodge and evade blaster fire and to shoot down droids.

At points, she’d fought along-side troopers with gold streaks painted on their white armor.

When the tide had shifted and the streets had opened enough for her to dart through, she’d raced out in the midst of friendly and enemy fire and got to a ship.

She’d loved flying, and her father indulged her probably thinking it would provide her a stable income flying trade-ships, and first opportunity, she got up in the air during this fight and provided assistance from _her_ domain.

Her grin had been sharp-toothed as she answered a hail as Gold One.

~

**19 BBY**

Hera remembered when ‘troopers came to Ryloth after the Wars.

Where before they’d greeted the soldiers with thanks after they helped free them from the droids and the Separatists, it was a somber, scared air that watched as they marched through the streets and had their blasters not set on stun.

She had been curious about the lack of color proudly decorating the armor, but it had been a secondary concern behind everything that happened with the War with the Separatists being declared over, with the news of the Jedi’s Rebellion and summary execution.

It hadn’t stopped her from painting herself with swathes of familiar color and walking past soldiers, trying to get a gauge if these were the same troopers or if they just favored the same sort of armor.

Several stuttered in their marching, but not one responded, they just looked away.

Hera thought it looked like shame.

~

Hera remembered how her father rebelled against the Emperor, and started a rebellion on Ryloth, and how thousands joined him in a stand against the Empire.

She remembered how ‘troopers were permanently stationed on their planet.

She remembered how their former enemies, the common people of the Separatist movement, flocked to Ryloth to join the fight.

She remembered how their rebellion joined a larger one after six months – and she took to flying a X-wing in their rebellion despite her father’s objections.


	2. Chapter 2

**18 BBY**

Hera would never forget how the one day she was having a rare dinner with her father, and even rarer, neither of them even remotely bringing up the one thing they had in common that was consuming their lives but they continued to argue on about how much she should be involved, it was interrupted.

Interrupted by a blue-skinned Twi’lek woman slipping up behind her father without a sound, then holding a vibroblade against his throat, “Are you Cham Syndulla?”.

Her father’s lekku had twitched in nervousness, but his voice was calm and even, “Who is asking?”.

Hera noticed how her right arm was bound up tight, practically immobile, while she just looked overall thin, but her hand didn’t shake in the slightest, “Someone who lost their home and family to fire and wants to burn the arsonists down to the ground.”

Despite the woman’s harsh words, her eyes were sad, a little bit lost, and mournful.

Her father made eye contact with her, silently asking her opinion on the woman because despite the unifying factor of hate against the Empire, there was still unsavory types her father turned away and he would die before letting anywhere near his precious rebellion. She nodded, and he spoke, “Do you seek justice or revenge against the Empire?”.

The woman’s hand didn’t waver, “Justice. To see peace restored and the man behind the deaths of my family unable to sentence anyone else to death.”

Her father straightened, his lekku still giving periodic twitches as her weapon-hand was still held _very_ close to his throat, “I am Cham Syndulla. Are you here for the Rebellion?”.

The woman de-activated the vibroblade, but didn’t yet pocket it, “I am.”

Hera had always admired the steel running through her father, but it really was something else when he stood, turned, and shook her hand, “Then welcome to the resistance, . .”

The woman was quiet, something haunted and so sad in her eyes, even as she stared down the ground and her hands were fisted, “You can call me . . Bly.”

Hera stood to come with, as her father lead the way further into their home, then down to where the base of their rebellion was based on, accessed by others from a series of tunnels spanning through-out their city, “Do you have any skills that can be put to use?”.

Bly twisted the hilt of the deactivated vibroblade around and over her fingers, “I served in the Clone Wars, and am an excellent pilot. I am proficient in most blades, but know my way around a blaster more than adequately. My Commander made sure of that.”

Her father nodded along, “You see a lot of action during the Wars?”

“Yes. Plenty for a lifetime.”

“Would you be more willing to see some more? We could use someone with experience on the front-lines.”

The woman nodded, her lekku curling tight up by her shoulders.


	3. Chapter 3

**8 BBY**

Despite serving the rebellion in very different capacities for ten years aside from the rare times Bly took to the skies, Hera and Bly saw a fair bit of each other.

It didn’t take long to realize the woman had taken up terminology from the Wars to hide where she’d been before. Nor long to know that the woman would sometimes change the setting of her blaster mid-battle to take out one or two troopers, switch back, then drag away those troopers from the battle as if they had been taken prisoner but they never were among their prisoners.

It did take a few years for anyone to see her use a blade rather than as a quick flash here or there – but she moved as if she was grace herself, as if she’d been born with blade in hand, even with the fact that her right arm was still stiffer. The injury she’d come to them with had never healed right, a blaster-burn punched through her upper shoulder and through her upper arm, the skin around both scars discolored as if she’d suffered an infection at the site after.

When anyone went looking for her outside of battle though, it could be guaranteed that when she was found, she would be meditating.

They kept abreast of the Jedi Hunts and who among them were still alive. Bly always stayed _just_ long enough to hear who was still unaccounted for and wanted, releasing her breathe in a rush when after that first year, the handful of names hardly changed, then she was gone. She never listened to anyone’s theories of where they were or the bets of how long it would be before Vader caught them.

Eight years in, they suffered a terrible attack that left tens of buildings collapsed and a fair number of them dead or missing. Bly never stopped looking, refused to let people give up when she thought there was even a chance of someone being alive, and found more than they could hope for. Far more than they would have found without her persistence.

Hera was the only one to see how when everyone else had given up, had stopped in the late hours of the fourth day, Bly had reached out one shaking hand and lifted a large piece of rubble from a building to expose a crack in the wall without touching it, and shortly after a couple had stumbled out and cried in relief.

She never said anything about the older woman’s secret.

Not a word until she set out off Ryloth when their rebellion had begun to die down, the Empire having deemed them not worth the full effort for a mere point and devolved to just mere skirmishes with ‘troopers here and there instead of full-on warfare, and those of them still wanting to fight, moved to concentrate their efforts in the galaxy-wide Rebellion. She was going to join a man she’d met the year prior, who was more interested in helping the people oppressed than fighting back, who had the same broken look in his eyes as Bly, and she was going to fly with him.

She said nothing more than, “You could use this to make a real ‘saber.” – as she handed over a kyber crystal she’d stolen off an Empire transport sometime during the years since realizing what Bly was hiding.

Bly had smiled, lekku twitching and curling lightly in pleasure, “Then I’ll change the fight and remind the Empire I’m not dead and gone nor so easy to defeat.”

Hera had laughed as she’d boarded the little ship she’d repaired and made her own over the years of fighting, fondly named the _Ghost_ for the clone company she’d fought with so long ago, “Rise like a phoenix from the ashes!”.


End file.
